Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

The Cincinnati Ballet goes all 'road trip' to perform at the nation's capital

Sofia Saari couldn’t contain herself. She was about to leave for her first-ever tour as a dancer with a professional company. There were many things she probably intended to say. But all that came out was an excited squeal.

Cincinnati Ballet's Maizyalet Velázquez leads a session of “Heads Up!” on the bus to pass the time on the trip to the nation's capital.(Photo: David Lyman)

Fair enough. It’s likely that most of the 40 or so dancers and administrators who gathered in front of Cincinnati Ballet’s Central Parkway headquarters Monday morning were feeling much the same emotions; excitement and anticipation and exhilaration that, after months of rehearsing, the time had come to put the company’s mammoth production of “Frisch’s Big Boy Presents The Nutcracker” on the stage.

And what a stage it was going to be – the Opera House in Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. (Don’t fret. They will be back at the Aronoff Center beginning Dec. 9.)

Every year since 2000, Kennedy Center has presented a visiting ballet company in a production of “The Nutcracker.” There have been a pair of Russian companies, the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky. But 14 of the 16 years it’s been a notable American company – The Joffrey Ballet (Chicago), American Ballet Theatre (New York), Pennsylvania Ballet (Philadelphia) and, most recently, Ballet West (Salt Lake City).

This year, it’s Cincinnati Ballet, with its splashy $2 million production, created by artistic director/CEO Victoria Morgan in 2011. When it premiered, the Enquirer described it as “enchanting, entertaining, captivating, occasionally eye-popping.”

Now it’s time for the rest of the country to judge for itself.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First the company has to get there. The sets are already in DC; four tractor trailers filled with scenery and stage lights left for Washington more than a week ago.

For these young dancers – they range from 17 to somewhere in their mid-30s – the sense of excitement is palpable. They’re giggly and chattering as they wait to board the bus. For many of them – like Saari – this is the their first-ever tour.

There was a time, not so long ago, when dance companies crisscrossed the country almost constantly.

The Cincinnati Ballet was one of them. In 1970, the company performed more than 20 put-of-town dates. Other the years, it was three times that many. Much of that was supported by the Dance Touring Program of the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA still exists. But that program, which assisted presenting groups by underwriting a portion of a dance company’s fee, disappeared in one of many budget cuts in the 1980s.

The Kentucky Arts Commission was involved in dance touring, too. And the Ohio Arts Council. So if you lived in Portsmouth or Bardstown or Berea or even tiny Pippa Passes, Ketnucky, you didn’t have to drive all the way to Cincinnati to see professional ballet. Every few years, it would come to you.

But for today’s dancers, hopping on a bus to perform somewhere else is a big deal.

Road trip

Company Manager Dena D’Andrea gives bus driver Phil Hogan the go-ahead. The last dancer has arrived. Before they depart, though, Morgan steps onto the bus. She reminisces about her days as a young dancer, performing in what seemed like every tiny town in the entire state of Utah.

“Touring like this is important,” she says, “not just because all of you get more opportunities to perform. It’s also important because of the camaraderie it builds.” (For the record, Morgan was not traveling by bus. She’ll fly in Tuesday.)

She’s right about that sense of togetherness, though. It’s as important with a dance company as it is with a sports team or in a business setting. The better you’re able to work together, the better the product you produce, whether it’s a pick-and-roll in basketball, a marketing plan in business or a complex ballet scene like “The Waltz of the Flowers.”

Finally, they’re off. It’s 9:41 a.m. – 11 minutes late. The goal is to arrive in DC at 7:10 p.m.. Now, for anyone who’s ever driven this route, that sounds like a snap. But the dancers’ union, the American Guild of Musical Artists, requires breaks every two hours. And a lunch break as well.

This isn’t just union muscle-flexing. There’s a reason for rules like that. Back in the late 1980s, when Ivan Nagy was artistic director, the company’s dancers experienced a particularly arduous bus trip.

It is now referred to as “The Bus Trip From Hell.” They were returning from a performance in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The company schedule said it would be a 12-hour trip. It ended up lasting 20 hours. The company got back to Cincinnati at 3 a.m.

Company class was scheduled for 10 a.m. The dancers asked Nagy if they would make it a little later. Noon, perhaps. Nagy said “no.

Company members were irate. Ballet is physical demanding. Bodies need rest. A short turnaround like Nagy wanted would put the dancers at increased risk of injury. The company did have a contract with its dancers. But it was one that Nagy could override whenever the mood struck him. Before long, the dancers voted to join AGMA. And within a year, Nagy was gone. And future bus rides were punctuated with breaks.

Best bus behavior

We’re no more than 10 minutes into the journey before the dancers are deeply involved in a variety of activities.

Naomi Tanioka has taken refuge in the last row of the bus and is busy reading Ransom Riggs’ best-selling novel “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.”

Samantha Riester and Daniel Wagner are busy watching “Guardians of the Galaxy” on a laptop.

Rodrigo Almarales has turned his hoody into a cocoon-like enclosure and has sacked out.

John Michael Donley and Jameson Keating are chattering nonstop, occasionally sharing earbuds so they can listen to music together. At one point, they’re bobbing their heads up and down so wildly that you’d swear they were listening to Metallica. Not so, they say. It was Yo Yo Ma’s “Goat Rodeo Sessions.”

Some snack, others gaze out the windows.

Pretty routine stuff.

Except for Sirui Liu and Ana Gallardo. They’re sewing pointe shoes, the box-toed, satin-covered shoes that make it easier for female dancers to stand on their toes.

Most of the women in the company already have pointe shoes that are custom-made for them. But there is still an endless amount of tweaking to do to make a shoe just right.

Gallardo, for instance, spends nearly an hour per shoe, snipping away the satin at the front of the shoe, then darning over that space with a medium-weight twine. There are ribbons and elastics that must be sewn on, too. And, in Gallardo’s case, she strengthens the shank of the shoe by hammering in 21 to 23 tiny nails.

There’s lots and lots of conversation, too. About games. And movies. There’s an animated description of the song “Hocus Pocus” by a 1970s Dutch band called Focus. Moments later, that morphs into an impassioned discussion about how much better Wildberry flavored Pop-Tarts are than the Brown Sugar Cinnamon ones.

Soon, there’s a spirited session of “Heads Up” led by Maizyalet Velázquez. If you haven’t played, it’s a little like a frantic e-version of Charades. The back half of the bus is completely consumed. Until something else comes along, that is.

Sometimes it feels like we’re on a stream-of-consciousness journey through the world of modern-day popular culture here. Everything seems to change every few minutes. Suddenly, you grasp how a video can go viral overnight. Or a fad can begin. And disappear.

The lunch stop can’t come too soon. But it’s quickly done. Within two hours, we’re driving through the highlands of western Maryland and the sun has disappeared. It’s quiet now. The emotions of the first part of the day have given way to sleep.

Luca De-Poli stretches out in the aisle. He’s 6-foot-6 and finds the cramped space of the bus seats difficult to navigate.

Sometime around 7:45 p.m., Donley checks the GPS on his phone.

“We’re 23 minutes away,” he announces.

We’re a little late. The company’s two union representatives, Cervilio Miguel Amador and Christopher Lingner, have agreed to forego the final roadside stop so they can get to the hotel sooner.

Five minutes later, we catch our first glimpse of the Washington Monument in the distance. And beyond that, the U.S. Capitol building.

Life inside the bus suddenly kicks into action. People are singing. Taylor Carrasco is doing his best impersonation of Selena. A few are dancing in the aisle. But not for long.

Moments later, we are directly across the Potomac from the Kennedy Center. It’s huge. The dancers grow quiet as they gaze at it. Within 48 hours, they’ll make their debuts on the stage there. If they’re nervous, it doesn’t show.

After all, this is what these dancers have spent much of their lives training for.

“Are you excited,” I ask Tanioka, who has finally put down her book and is preparing to leave the bus.

She smiles. And nods. No need to say any more. Like the rest of them, she’s ready.

The Cincinnati Ballet debuts its "Nutcracker" Wednesday night at the Kennedy Center.